Former National Health Minister Bill English expressed horror in 1997 at the claims and said it had to be cleared up quickly, but 18 years later the matter had to end up going to UNCAT due to the Governments refusal to accept responsibility for what happened and the Police's refusal to press charges against former staff
A representative of the UN committee, Felice Gaer, asks in her letter if the Government "intends to carry out an impartial investigation into the nearly 200 allegations of torture and ill-treatment against minors at Lake Alice" and prosecute and punish the perpetrators.
A report by retired High Court judge Sir Rodney Gallen said they had been subjected to a behaviour modification programme which he labelled a regime of "terror".
The UN's committee against torture has raised concerns over the police decision to end its investigation in 2009 without prosecuting any staff of the now-closed hospital near Wanganui.
Dr Leeks said the children he had treated were feral and psychotic and were future murderers and thieves. “Society will realise one day that I was ahead of my time.”Dose this sound like a sane person?
In June 2005 in Columbia, South Carolina, a jury awarded $635,000 in a malpractice suit against a psychiatrist who referred a patient for electroshock treatment. The hospital had previously settled for a small amount and the doctor who administered the treatment was not found negligent. The plaintiff, Peggy Salters, is a former nurse who lost her memory for many years of her life, including her professional training and the raising of her children. Her cognitive abilities remain impaired for new learning as well. She was found permanently disabled by the shock treatment. Mrs. Salters viewed the jury award as a victory for all victims of electroshock. It is probably the first jury award in an electroshock malpractice case. The fact that the referring physician was found negligent may encourage greater caution on the part of physicians who refer their patients to “shock doctors” for treatment. Dr. Peter Breggin was the medical expert on behalf of Mrs. Salters. The attorney was Mark Hardee (phone 803 799 0905).
The defendant appealed the case and the jury's verdict was affirmed by the appelate court. The court cited Dr. Breggin's testimony in concluding that the jury had not erred in it finding the doctor negligent. The decision of the court can be found here.
70% of ECT VICTIMS are ELDERLY WOMAN who are not capable or coherent enough to even know what is happening to them.
FIVE BIG LIES - Dr Max Fink - "Above all DO NO HARM" !!!!
Big Lie 1: Dr. Fink tells people that ECT is safer than childbirth. If one out of every 200 women were dying in delivery it would be front page news.
Big Lie 2: ECT doesn’t cause brain damage. One picture will refute that. The illustration Above (MRI on the right, CT left, same patient) depicts a large haemorrhage from ECT. Hemorrhages, large and small, cause permanent seizure disorders in some patients. ( Weisberg, L. Elliott, D and Mielke, D: Intracerebral Hemorrhage Following ECT). Another MRI study documented a breakdown of the blood brain barrier and cerebral edema - brain swelling - after each and every shock. (Mander et al: 1987)
Big Lie 3: ECT is new and improved. The whole point of ECT is to trigger a convulsion and there is simply no way around the brain’s threshold: 100 joules of energy, a typical "dose," whether brief pulse, square wave, sine wave, AC or DC, unilateral or bilateral, with or without oxygen equals the energy it takes to light up a 100 watt bulb for one second or drop a 73 pound weight one foot. And it’s the energy that does the damage.
Big lie 4: ECT is a "Godsend" (Fink again). In March of this year, Dr. Sackeim published a study in
JAMA showing a "relapse rate" of 84% within six months of stopping ECT. It is no coincidence that improvement ceases just as the concussive effects are finally waning. Sackeim’s solution?: more ECT. Call it "maintenance" or call it "continuation," just don’t stop. (JAMA. 2001;285:1299-130)
Big lie 5: "No one knows how ECT works". On the contrary, everyone knows how ECT works. It works by erasing memory, destroying people's lives and absolutely terrifies people.
Max Fink, still openly states that the basis of improvement is “similar to that of craniocerebral trauma” (head injury). From a neurological point of view "ECT" is a method of producing amnesia by selectively damaging the temporal lobes and the structures within them.
MORE than 200 Psychiatric patients died in ''unexpected, unnatural or violent''
circumstances last year in Victoria. Out of the 237 who died, another 6 committed "Suicide".
So that is 206 out of 237 "VICTIMS" who were brutally "Murdered" under ECT Treatments.
MEANING 87% of PEOPLE DIED a BRUTAL DEATH !!!!
WHO IS BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE ?
Electroshock is a brutal, dehumanizing, memory-destroying, intelligence-lowering, brain-damaging, brainwashing, and life-threatening technique. Leonard Frank - "ECT SURVIVOR"
''Mental health is the only area of medicine where you can be forced to receive a treatment against
your will. It borders on discrimination, I'm talking about medication as well,'' Professor Read said.
OVER 2 MILLION "ECT TREATMENTS" are Performed every year. 70% of ECT VICTIMS are ELDERLY WOMAN who are not capable or coherent enough to even know what is happening to them.
In Italy, where "ECT" began more than 62 years ago, "ECT" has almost been abolished.
Northern Italy "bans ECT on children, pregnant women and the elderly"
IN AUSTRALIA - OVER 700 PEOPLE IN 2011 HAVE BEEN "FORCED AGAINST THEIR WILL" TO ECT
FDA Advisory Panel Recommends Electroshock Device - Too Risky For Reclassification
The Neurological Devices Advisory Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recommended today that devices used to deliver shock treatment, also known as ElectroConvulsive Therapy (ECT) remain in the
most high-risk category (Class III), reserved for the most dangerous medical devices and not be downgraded to a lower risk category. In so doing, it recommended that the Companies which manufacture ECT devices be required to prove that ECT is both effective and safe in order to remain in use.
ECT has long been known to cause serious harm to patients, including extremely severe and permanent memory loss, inability to learn and remember new events, depression, suicide, cardiovascular complications, prolonged and dangerous seizures and even death.
QUESTIONS: How can the "United Nations" who deplore and condemn "ELECTRIC CONVULSIVE SHOCK TREATMENT" continue to allow 2 million plus people to be subject to its dangerous "practice".
Why have so many Countries around the World blasted "ECT" as a deadly treatment and permanently banned this barbaric treatment from their Country and Laws?
Last week, a report by the University of San Diego School of Law found that about 686,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect in 2013. Traumatic childhood events can lead to mental health and behavioral problems later in life, explains psychiatrist and traumatic stress expert Bessel van der Kolk, author of the recently published book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Children’s brains are literally shaped by traumatic experiences, which can lead to problems with anger, addiction, and even criminal activity in adulthood, says van der Kolk. Sound Medicine’s Barbara Lewis spoke with him about his book.
Sound Medicine: Can psychologically traumatic events change the physical structure of the brain?
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk: Yes, they can change the connections and activations in the brain. They shape the brain.
The human brain is a social organ that is shaped by experience, and that is shaped in order to respond to the experience that you’re having. So particularly earlier in life, if you're in a constant state of terror; your brain is shaped to be on alert for danger, and to try to make those terrible feelings go away.
The brain gets very confused. And that leads to problems with excessive anger, excessive shutting down, and doing things like taking drugs to make yourself feel better. These things are almost always the result of having a brain that is set to feel in danger and fear.
As you grow up an get a more stable brain, these early traumatic events can still cause changes that make you hyper-alert to danger, and hypo-alert to the pleasures of everyday life.
SM: So are you saying that a child's brain is much more malleable than an adult brain?
BK: A child's brain is virtually nonexistent. It's being shaped by experience. So yes, it’s extremely malleable.
SM: What is the mechanism by which traumatic events change the brain?
BK: The brain is formed by feedback from the environment. It's a profoundly relational part of our body.
In a healthy developmental environment, your brain gets to feel a sense of pleasure, engagement, and exploration. Your brain opens up to learn, to see things, to accumulate information, to form friendships.
It's about becoming safe to feel what you feel. When you're traumatized you're afraid of what you're feeling, because your feeling is always terror, or fear or helplessness. I think these body-based techniques help you to feel what's happening in your body, and to breathe into it and not run away from it. So you learn to befriend your experience.
But if you're in an orphanage for example, and you're not touched or seen, whole parts of your brain barely develop; and so you become an adult who is out of it, who cannot connect with other people, who cannot feel a sense of self, a sense of pleasure. If you run into nothing but danger and fear, your brain gets stuck on just protecting itself from danger and fear.
SM: Does trauma have a very different effect on children compared to adults?
BK: Yes, because of developmental issues. If you're an adult and life's been good to you, and then something bad happens, that sort of injures a little piece of the whole structure. But toxic stress in childhood from abandonment or chronic violence has pervasive effects on the capacity to pay attention, to learn, to see where other people are coming from, and it really creates havoc with the whole social environment.
And it leads to criminality, and drug addiction, and chronic illness, and people going to prison, and repetition of the trauma on the next generation.
SM: Are there effective solutions to childhood trauma?
BK: It is difficult to deal with but not impossible.
One thing we can do - which is not all that well explored because there hasn't been that much funding for it - is neurofeedback, where you can actually help people to rewire the wiring of their brain structures.
Another method is putting people into safe environments and helping them to create a sense of safety inside themselves. And for that you can go to simple things like holding and rocking.
We just did a study on yoga for people with PTSD. We found that yoga was more effective than any medicine that people have studied up to now. That doesn't mean that yoga cures it, but yoga makes a substantial difference in the right direction.
SM: What is it about yoga that helps?
BK: It's about becoming safe to feel what you feel. When you're traumatized you're afraid of what you're feeling, because your feeling is always terror, or fear or helplessness. I think these body-based techniques help you to feel what's happening in your body, and to breathe into it and not run away from it. So you learn to befriend your experience.
Disturbing News for Patients and Shock Doctors Alike
Something most remarkable and unexpected has occurred in the field of psychiatry. Lead by a lifelong defender and promoter of shock treatment, Harold Sackeim, a team of investigators has recently published a follow up study of three hundred and forty-seven patients given the currently available methods of electroshock, including the supposedly most benign forms--and confirmed that electroshock causes permanent brain damage and dysfunction.
Ernest Hemingway, American author, committed suicide shortly after ECT at the Menninger Clinic in 1961. He is reported to have said to his biographer, "Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient...."
Registered nurse Barbara C. Cody reports in a letter to the ''Washington Post'' that her life was forever changed by 13 outpatient ECTs she received in 1983. "Shock 'therapy' totally and permanently disabled me. EEGs verify the extensive damage shock did to my brain. Fifteen to 20 years of my life were simply erased; only small bits and pieces have returned. I was also left with short-term memory impairment and serious cognitive deficits. [deletion Shock 'therapy' took my past, my college education, my musical abilities, even the knowledge that my children were, in fact, my children. I call ECT a rape of the soul."
Liz Spikol, the senior contributing editor of ''Philadelphia Weekly'', wrote of her ECT in 1996, "Not only was the ECT ineffective, it was incredibly damaging to my cognitive functioning and memory. But sometimes it's hard to be sure of yourself when everyone "credible"—scientists, ECT docs, researchers—are telling you that your reality isn't real. How many times have I been told my memory loss wasn't due to ECT but to depression? How many times have I been told that, like a lot of other consumers, I must be perceiving this incorrectly? How many times have people told me that my feelings of trauma related to the ECT are misplaced and unusual? It's as if I was raped and people kept telling me not to be upset—that it wasn't that bad."Kitty
Leading psychiatrists say an investigation into a doctor's involvement in giving shock treatment to children at Lake Alice Hospital must be treated with urgency.
The government has apologised and paid $6.5 million in compensation to 95 patients for the treatment they received at the hospital, near Marton, in the 1970s.
The patients say they were given shock treatment and injections of the drug paraldehyde as punishment while in the hospital's children's unit in the 1970s.
Doctor Selwyn Leeks, who ran the unit, now has a practice in Melbourne and the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria is investigating his work at Lake Alice.
An Australian medical tribunal is investigating the allegations.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) alleged that Doctor Selwyn Leeks was involved in the shock treatment while running a children's psychiatric unit at Lake Alice Hospital near the New Zealand city of Palmerston North.
Leeks allegedly used injections of the drug paraldehyde and electric shocks to modify the behaviour of children at the facility, according to the RANZCP.
"The practices alleged can only be described as severe child abuse and torture," chair of the college's faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry Louise Newman said.
A spokeswoman for the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria (MPBV) confirmed that the matter was under investigation.
"The board is concerned and is investigating to see if further action is required," the spokeswoman said.
NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark and Health Minister Annette King earlier this month apologised to 95 former patients at Lake Alice Hospital.
The former patients were awarded a total $6.3 million to settle a class action over the matter.
Leeks, who now runs a practice in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham, has confirmed he was involved in the use of shock treatment on patients during his tenure at Lake Alice Hospital.
Initially he said his legal advisers had told him not to talk on the issue, but he later said there was nothing inappropriate in use of the shock treatment and that the drug, paraldehyde, was mostly administered by his nursing staff.
Leeks said the shock treatment was used for mood disorders and schizophrenia while the drug was used to temper "uncontrollable" behaviour.
"I'm loath to say much else," he said.
He said the previous NZ government was not prepared to agree to
the payouts to patients.
"I can only say the previous government were going to contest it," he said.
RANZCP executive director Craig Patterson said his organisation
demanded the highest clinical and ethical standards of its members,
and would do all that was legally possible to ensure those standards were upheld.
"The prime minister and health minister in New Zealand have seen
fit to apologise to and to compensate the former patients of the service operated by Dr Leeks," Patterson said.
"And yet, despite previous appeals by the college, no investigation into the role played by this doctor in the alleged practices has been successfully completed."
In 1977, the then NZ chief ombudsman Guy Powles found a 15-year-old boy who received shock therapy while at the hospital was caused "a grave injustice" by decisions made by officers of the department of health and social welfare.
Craig Patterson from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists says the inquiry is needed urgently so the college can decide whether he should be expelled.
Patterson says the College has high ethical and clinical standards and if the allegations are true then it wants to take action.
The release of the report into abuses at state-run psychiatric institutions is a timely reminder that the Government has still not delivered justice for claimants in the Lake Alice Inquiry, says National Party Associate Health spokesman (Mental Health) Jonathan Coleman.
“The Labour Cabinet secretly withheld $35,000 in compensation that Sir Rodney Gallen awarded a patient following the Lake Alice Inquiry. That was challenged in the High Court. The Government lost, and subsequently decided not to appeal the decision.
“As a result of that precedent, in the High Court there are 87 other second-round claimants who are still awaiting $3 million that this Government decided to take from them.
“That is money that rightfully belongs to a vulnerable group of people who had their lives ruined because of abuse at the hands of the state.
“Rather than nodding gravely at this latest damning report, the Attorney-General needs to live up to his professed belief in social justice and write out the cheques that the High Court determined these people are due.”
And now National are in power they are the ones dragging the chain
Electro shock is the 'medical treatment' of sending a charge of electricity through a person's brain to induce a seizure or convulsion. These days it is usually called ECT, meaning Electro Convulsive Therapy. Less offensively to psychiatric survivors, ECT stands for Electro Convulsive Torture or Electro Convulsive Trauma.
What happens?
The patient is educated on the benefits of ECT and then invited to give their 'informed consent' to receive electro shock.
If the patient doesn't sign the paper, there is a hearing which the patient may or may not attend. Two psychiatrists will inform a judge of their opinion that the patient should have ECT. If the judge agrees with them, the patient will be forced to have electo shock against their will, courtesy of the Mental Health Act of 1992.
The procedure is administered by a psychiatrist, an anaesthetist, an ECT nurse and a recovery nurse in an operating theatre setting with emergency equipment at hand in case of heart-failure or a stroke. Short-acting muscle relaxing and anaesthetic drugs are administered to stop the patient thrashing around during convulsion and breaking bones or sustaining other injuries that were a common result of unmodified ECT. The convulsion will be visible as a tremor in her upper and lower limbs, or perhaps just the fingers and toes, thanks to the drugs which act like a chemical seat-belt. However the use of these drugs necessitates a higher level of electricity to ensure that the patient will have a seizure.
The level of electricity to be used on the patient's brain will vary depending on factors like her age. A human skull has a high resistance to electricity, and elderly brains are particularly resistant and will need a higher charge. The electricity levels will be applied and monitored by the psychiatrist by use of an ECT machine.
The anaesthetised patient will receive bagged ventilation from the anaesthetist. As a precaution a disposable mouth guard will have been inserted in her mouth, and her false teeth will have been removed if she wears them. Two electrodes will be placed on the patient's skull, either on both sides of the head, or else both on one side, usually the right. Electricity will be applied and she will convulse for at least 25 seconds, although she will be totally unaware of it under anaesthesia.
The next thing she will know, she'll be in the recovery room, waking up and feeling disorientated. She may have a headache, and will have some gaps in her memory. It it is not all over yet. Most people receive a course of 2-3 treatments a week over 2-4 weeks.
Electroshock? They still do that? You bet they do, to more than 100,000 Americans every year! Since 1938, psychiatrists have subjected millions of people throughout the world to electroshock (shock therapy, electroconvulsive treatment, ECT), but the public knows little about this harmful practice.
The Electroshock Quotationary by shock survivor and editor Leonard Roy Frank is an illustrated, 154-page collection of chronologically arranged quotations, excerpts, and essays about the history and nature of electroshock: who gets it and why, how it's administered, what the experience is like, what its effects are, and how the struggle surrounding its use is being played out within and beyond the psychiatric profession. More than 400 entries dating from 47 A.D. to the present are included in this highly readable and carefully researched expose of one of medicine's most controversial procedures.
"ECT is one of God's gifts to mankind. There is nothing like it, nothing equal to it in efficacy or safety in all of psychiatry." Max Fink, electroshock psychiatrist,1996.
"The magnitude of the [electroshock] atrocity is too great to communicate. That's why it's the perfect crime." Rich Winkel, electroshock survivor, 2005
Electroshock is a psychiatric procedure that induces a grand mal seizure, or convulsion, by passing electricity through the brain. Two- thirds of those who undergo ECT are women, half are elderly, and payment is usually covered by insurance. Electroshock is a multi- billion-dollar-a-year industry. Opponents charge that electroshock causes permanent brain damage, memory loss, learning disability, and a significant number of deaths; is often used as an instrument of social control; and is sometimes administered by means of coercion or outright force and seldom with genuine informed consent.
Frank edited the best-selling Random House Webster's Quotationary in 1998 and The History of Shock Treatment in 1978. Active in the psychiatric survivors movement since 1972, he is a member of MindFreedom International, a coalition of more than 100 grassroots groups working for human rights in psychiatry, and also The Coalition for the Abolition of Electroshock in Texas, from whose website The Electroshock Quotationary may be downloaded free of charge at http://www.endofshock.com/102C_ECT.PDF
A Christchurch man says "barbaric" electric shock therapy failed to lift his depression but robbed him of treasured memories.
David O'Neill's health deteriorated in 2004 after a motorcycle accident damaged his liver, bladder and thyroid and sliced his spleen in two.
He had repeated admissions to hospital for complications of his injuries and a series of unsuccessful investigations to find the cause of his chronic abdominal pain.
The frequent hospital stays and constant pain took its toll on his mental health.
"I ended up suicidal," said O'Neill.
He was admitted to Hillmorton Hospital in 2005 for depression. On his second stay, a doctor recommended a 12-session course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which O'Neill consented to.
"I cannot even remember being admitted to the hospital, never mind giving consent for the ECT," he said.
The treatment failed to lift his depression and it destroyed his memory. He has no recollection of his wedding day, the birth of his three children or even his childhood.
O'Neill, now 49, said that before his accident he had cared for his wife – paralysed in a 1985 car accident – and raised their three children.
"Now I can't do anything. I feel as if I'm above myself all the time. I don't feel pain; I'm emotion-free," he said.
ECT was "barbaric" and should be banned, he said.
His family is dismayed it was not consulted and says O'Neill was not well enough to give properly informed consent.
Daughter Julieanne O'Neill said her father no longer felt any love for his family, including his two-year-old grandson.
"My dad has no feelings for him, no feelings for his family. He doesn't feel anything for himself. He is living in an empty shell," she said. "It has taken every single bit of my dad that was ever there away from him."
She said some doctors appeared to see ECT as "the quickest and easiest" solution. "But it's not them that has to go home and have this zombie person to cope with."
Mary O'Neill said the shock treatment had stolen the husband she had known.
Psychiatric Consumers Trust advocate Liz Henderson said ECT could lift depression and transform the lives of patients. "There is a place for it." But it had clearly failed O'Neill.
"It has compounded what was already a difficult situation," Henderson said.
Henderson was concerned that consent was gained without his family's involvement. "He wasn't well enough to make that decision."
Vince Barry, general manager of Canterbury District Health Board mental health services, would not discuss individual patients.
However, he said it was the responsibility of clinicians to determine whether a patient was able to understand the pros and cons of ECT. "It would be unusual for someone to be given ECT without a discussion between the clinical team and close family members," he said.
The Health and Disability Commissioner has decided against a formal investigation of O'Neill's case and referred him to an advocate.
The Accident Compensation Corporation has refused his treatment injury claim, ruling that the ECT did not cause a physical injury.
ECT statistics (July 2004-June 2005):
307 patients given ECT (79 in Canterbury).
22 per cent did not give consent.
0.4% of mental health patients given ECT nationally.
1.1% of Canterbury mental health patients given ECT.
This is how i feel to! no emotion so not depressed but also not happy feel i would be better off dead.
and you keep letting this damaging practice continue, ECT needs to be outlawed. And we should be able to access rehab the same as if we got brain damage from a brick, You keep saying ECT is safer now than it used to be but they have to use more power now to counteract the anesthetic so i would guess more dangerous.
Patients Face Brain Damage with ECT Rules
Patients 'face brain damage' with ECT rules
RUTH HILL - The Dominion Post | Monday, 07 April 2008
Opponents of electric shock therapy say the Government has left vulnerable mental patients at risk of serious brain damage by watering down recommendations to curb its use.
The Government says it has "fully or partially endorsed" seven of the eight recommendations by Parliament's health select committee - but stopped short of making ECT strictly a treatment of last resort, and has upheld doctors' rights to overrule patients' wishes.
The committee's report stemmed from a 2005 petition by Auckland GP Helen Smith, which called for a ban or severe restrictions on the use of ECT on children, pregnant women and the elderly, and stricter regulatory controls, including giving patients the right to refuse. Dr Smith said many New Zealanders would be horrified to learn that their wishes could be over-ridden by a doctor, when they were older. "In some regions of New Zealand, 60 to 70 per cent of ECT patients have not given their consent ... "It's just as barbaric and damaging as cutting out part of a person's brain."
Clinical psychologist John Read, from Auckland University, said there had not been a single study in 60 years that shows ECT is effective beyond three or four weeks, and plenty of studies that show it causes memory loss and brain damage. He also had major concerns about the process, which he said had been hijacked by a clique of pro-ECT psychiatrists within the Health Ministry. "The Government has received biased advice, completely without basis in clinical evidence."
Hamilton nurse Anna de Jonge, who started the original 1999 petition calling for ECT to be banned, said the Government's response was a whitewash. "Nothing has changed - they are still able to shock old women, pregnant women and children. It's torture, it's what they do to animals in the slaughterhouse." Mrs de Jonge said, through her work with the Patients Rights Advocacy group, she had met many people destroyed by ECT. "Women get shocked far more than men; they fry their brains till they don't know if they are Arthur or Martha and then they lock them up in rest homes till they die."
Mental health advocate Mary O'Hagan, a former mental health commissioner, said opinion on ECT was polarised - even among patients. "I've heard some people say it was a lifeline ... but in the history of psychiatry, there have been many treatments that are now considered barbaric, like lobotomies and insulin shock treatment."
I have been on some form of benefit through Work and Income for most of the last five years. I have been on the unemployment benefit, the sickness benefit and am now on the all-encompassing Jobseekers benefit.
I also suffer from anxiety and severe depressive episodes.
Work and Income was never short of advice in regards to my illness. Whenever I went to my local service centre, I would sit in the waiting room surrounded by quasi-inspirational, but really just condescending posters of smiling people, with phrases such as: “Thinking I couldn’t do it was my biggest disability”.
Meetings with case managers at Work and Income frequently featured a unhelpful and unsolicited medical advice, ranging from exercise to yoga to meditation to eating correctly to doing volunteer work. But by far their most common go to line was “Employment is the best path to recovery”.
Eamonn Marra: "I worried that one day I would attend an interview and be asked 'So why has this Bachelor of Arts taken you six years?'"
Supplied
Employment can have a huge effect on mental health, but we cannot only recognise its positive contribution without admitting it has the ability to be a negative one as well. Work and Income’s mantra is not completely wrong; employment has been a huge step in my increasing mental health over the past eight months. However, on the flipside, an extremely unhealthy work environment in my late teens caused huge damage to my mental health, and contributed to years out of the workforce.
In December 2009 I worked for a security company car park at a large mall in Christchurch, directing the Christmas traffic into available parks. It was hands down one of the worst experiences of my life. It had all the tropes of a bad job: long hours, low pay, stress, dealing with stressed and rude customers, minimal breaks, and little real human interaction. But by far the worst thing was the contempt we were treated both by the mall and the security company.
Any complaints to and from the security company were blamed on the unapproachable, faceless mall. The mall was a faceless entity who kept us under constant vigilance through security cameras and plainclothes spies. We were separated and unable to talk to one another, so any collective power we could have had was quickly quashed. Any and all problems or complaints were dealt with purely on a one-on-one basis to someone who would have no power to change the situation.
Our morale shrunk everyday as we were told we are useless and replaceable, but many of us were unable to quit without financial repercussions due to our being on fixed-term contracts. All problems were responded with threats of docked pay or being fired and replaced. We lost our humanity over this period. There was no pride to be had in this job; we were cheap labour that was told we weren’t even worth the minimum wage we were being paid. While my labour was cheap for both the mall and the security company, it cost far more for both me and, eventually, the taxpayer.
Because after this experience, my esteem dropped completely, and I fell into one of my most depressive and self-destructive periods. I was under the impression that not only was I worthless, unemployable, and had no redeemable qualities (this means payable, because the only value we give anything is a monetary one), but that the whole concept of employment was by its very nature exploitative and evil, and I was unsure I could ever survive in that world. No number of inspirational posters on the walls of my local Work and Income could get me out of this rut.
I spent over three years not only unemployed, but afraid of work. This kept me on the now-defunct sickness benefit. The idea of applying for a job was enough to send me into a panic attack. Over the years, I arranged and rearranged my CV, and wrote cover letters for dozens of jobs that I was too afraid to actually send in.
The thing that I was most afraid of was having to admit to an employer that I had severe anxiety problems and potentially could not meet some of the requirements they expected of me. One cannot casually drop “Managed to attend university one day a week throughout years of anxiety” into the ‘Key Achievements’ section of your CV. I worried that one day I would attend an interview and be asked “So why has this Bachelor of Arts taken you six years?” or “Why do you have such a large hole in your employment history in your early twenties?”.
Being open with your situation is vital to live a happy and fulfilling life with any mental health issues, but in order to even be considered for most jobs in this competitive environment we are forced to hide something that is so important to keep out in the open.
But then in June 2013, I managed to get a job at a small cinema in Wellington, purely because my flatmate worked there and they needed some casual staff over the upcoming film festival. Then, luckily, a couple of staff left shortly after the festival finished, and I was able to keep the job.
And over time those WINZ posters finally started to make sense: I could do it. I was very good at my job – and, what’s more, a job in hospitality, which up until then had been one of my greatest fears. I became a great barista. I learned the art of a perfect ice cream scoop. I charmed old ladies. I was appreciated by the customers and my colleagues. And it was mostly because I worked under the best and kindest boss I could hope for.
She worked on the ground floor with the front-of-house staff. We shared the responsibility and the pride that came from work well done; she made sure that the staff felt good about a good day and never blamed us when things fell apart. I felt fine telling her about my condition. She was accepting of the fact that sometimes I would spill wine when my shaking was getting out of hand. I took pride in my work and she was proud of my work. I worked hard, but unlike the carparking job, I did it because I wanted to, not because of fear of retribution. I felt proud of myself and of the workplace.
Unfortunately, a few months into this job, there was a change of ownership and my boss was made redundant, and in came a new manager and more importantly new management technique. Morale at the cinema dropped instantly.
There was no more sharing the ground floor work with the manager; there was no casual and friendly conversation between us. The hierarchy that felt unimportant before was strengthened, and put front and centre in any conversation with the new management. Suddenly I was less comfortable showing my anxiety around work. When you see people like you referred to as being “sensitive” or “fragile” with a smirk or an eye roll, it can make you not want to be open about your own mental state.
My pride in my work dropped. I still loved the cinema; I loved the customers, and they loved me. I was still good at my job. But I was making more and more mistakes. We were also severely understaffed, which sent me into sweaty shaky panics that often left customers asking “Are you all right?” The level of service drastically fell, while my anxiety rose and rose.
Frustration grew as all of the shifts were offered as if they were gifts from the company to me. Whenever it was a slow day, we were reminded of how much our wage had cost the business. We were assured that we were lucky to be working, let alone paid. That didn’t make me feel like I was useful; it made me feel totally unappreciated.
 I could not leave work behind at the cinema, and it began to interfere with my personal life, my dreams, and my everyday conversations
As I was given less and less respect, my frustration, stress and anger rose. I could not leave work behind at the cinema, and it began to interfere with my personal life, my dreams, and my everyday conversations. It severely affected my mood, my mental health, my friendships and my home life. Even my finances and health were impacted as I was driven to short-term ways of coping such as alcohol and fast food.
Eventually, after a particularly frustrating shift, I quit.
Work and Income are not happy.
I am no longer meeting my work commitments. But I am feeling good again. I have regained some sense of autonomy; I have regained control of my life. I was lucky to leave before the job wore me down into the kind of state that kept me out of employment for years.
I know that I’m lucky to be in a position to do this: the majority of the workers in this country have too many responsibilities and needs, like dependants and mortgages, to be able to leave a job that wears them down day after day.
I was angry, but now I no longer hold my old manager responsible for this; it is his way of dealing with a struggling business. It’s a common management technique, looking at staff purely in terms of financial contribution, a positive and negative on the balance sheet. The fact that management is taught in the commerce departments at universities reflects the huge problem with what we as a society feel is the objective of management: that it is an economic pursuit designed to maximise profit.
We cannot, on one hand, claim that employment can fix our personal problems as in the Work and Income posters, while on the other accept common management practices that treat employment as purely a financial transaction.
Clearly employment is a huge part of people’s lives, and one that gives us a sense of purpose, pride, an idea of who we are. We do not walk away from it unscathed with a pocket full of cash. Everything we do has repercussions on our mental health, but especially areas on which we are financially and emotionally dependent and spend a great deal of our time.
I am not of the opinion that mental illness is purely “bad brain chemistry” that should be fixed with medication and therapy. The way we treat each other is the most profound effect on mental health we have, and as long as we treat each other as means of making profit rather than as human beings with human needs, we are contributing to a problem that can be easily minimised. Many of us define ourselves by our jobs, and if we are told by our work environments that we are useless, unworthy or lucky to even be there, that spreads to our senses of self. This is not just an issue for those of us who have mental illnesses – a healthy work environment is essential for all of us. It increases productivity, it minimises the cost of healthcare, and increases a sense of community and care for what we do.
Dedicated to Kate Larkindale
This content is brought to you with funding assistance from New Zealand On Air.
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After this piece was published, Sandra Kirikiri, Director Welfare Reform at Work and Income, responded:
Managing a mental illness while working or looking for a job can be tough.
We also know that with the right type of help people can find and maintain a job, which for many can be beneficial in managing their condition.
Work and Income has made some changes in how we support jobseekers with a mental illness. Depending on a person’s circumstances we can offer more individualised help to so we can better understand their situation and what’s needed to help overcome the barriers they face to finding work.
If you need help, come and talk to us. Yea right and get abused even further you people have no idea of what mental illness is or how it effects people
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
June 17, 2004
NELSON, NEW ZEALAND--Four patients of the former Ngawhatu Psychiatric Hospital have come forward to issue formal complaints against the government claiming that they were sexually and physically abused by staff members, and were punished with electric shock treatments -- sometimes several times a day.
Attorney Roger Chapman told the Nelson Mail that complaints have also been filed by a man whose wife was a patient at Ngawhatu in the 1950s, along with a former staff member whose sister was a patient.
Chapman said that the staff member, a former nurse's aide, gave his office a medical journal and other information about treatments at the hospital. While he would not give details, the Wellington attorney said the woman alleges that patients were subjected to experimentation on eletro-shock therapy (ECT), a controversial treatment that was later discredited except in very specific cases.
"She is certainly saying that there was a certain amount of experimentation on patients, giving them substantial amounts of electric shock therapy," Chapman said. "There is also talk of some patients being given an electrical leucotomy. We are still getting details about that but it doesn't sound great."
A leucotomy, known in the U.S. and other places as a lobotomy, is a surgical operation on the frontal lobes of the brain intended to treat some mental illnesses that were not affected by medication.
The cases are part of a "steady number" of complaints -- more than 200 so far -- that have been filed recently by former patients of psychiatric institutions across New Zealand. Most of the complaints concern incidents that allegedly occured during the 1960s and 1970s by patients who were then between 8 and 16 years of age.
Nearly 70 legal claims have been filed so far in the High Court, each asking for up to $500,000 in compensation and up to $50,000 in exemplary damages, the New Zealand Herald reported. Another 40 cases are close to being filed.
Until recently officials had believed the abuses were confined to two former institutions. As more claimants came forward in the past few weeks, nearly all of the country's psychiatric hospitals had been implicated.
Most of the facilities either are closed or no longer operate as mental institutions. Ngawhatu Psychiatric Hospital was closed in 2000-2001 and its residents moved into the Nelson community.
The claims by one former patient of Kingseat Hospital, south of Auckland, have prompted Manukau police to reopen their investigation into the 1968 death of 11-year-old Clement Matthews. A coroner had ruled that the boy died from pneumonia. Stephen Lindsay, who was 14 at the time has reported that he witnessed Matthews being beaten and kicked a few hours before he was found dying in his locked room.
On Monday, Prime Minister Helen Clark said the Government is looking into the possibility of dealing with the complaints through mediation, but that more time is needed to gather information before deciding on what approach to take.
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
July 9 2004
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND--Four former staff members of Porirua Mental Hospital have come forward to verify that abuse, humiliation and threats were part of the culture at the facility in the 1960s.
The four women, who were aides to the nursing staff at the time, told the New Zealand Weekend Herald that patients were routinely threatened and punished with painful procedures, such as electro-convulsive therapy, otherwise known as "shock treatment", administered without any muscle relaxants or pain medications.
"Patients were terrified," said Elisabeth Gamlen.
"People were herded naked, like animals, down corridors into huge bathrooms and roughly sluiced (washed) down."
The women's statements support complaints lodged recently by more than 200 former patients of New Zealand psychiatric institutions, alleging mistreatment by staff members and other residents. The women told the paper that they decided to speak out after learning that the credibility of the people filing those complaints might be questioned.
Most of the complaints concern incidents that allegedly occurred during the 1960s and 1970s by patients who were then between 8 and 16 years of age.
Some claim they were beaten, sexually assaulted, over-medicated, unwillingly subjected to experiments in electro-convulsive treatments, and placed in isolation for long periods of time -- sometimes for months.
The recent reports have also led government officials to reopen an investigation into the 1968 death of 11-year-old Clement Matthews. A coroner and pathologist officially reported that the boy died of pneumonia. A former roommate recently accused a nurse of murdering Matthews.
Nearly 70 legal claims have been filed so far in the High Court, each asking for as much as $500,000 in compensation and up to $50,000 in exemplary damages. Another 40 cases are close to being filed.
Until recently officials had believed the abuses were confined to Porirua and one other former institution. As more claimants came forward in the past several weeks, nearly all of the country's psychiatric hospitals had been implicated.
Most of the facilities either are closed or no longer operate as mental institutions.
In the years since I became hyper-aware of how the intellectually disabled have been treated (or mistreated) in New Zealand, I have not been impressed with what I have found. I know that the wonderful and kind institutions are less likely to make the news, but I also know that what makes the news is only ever the tip of the iceberg. In researching this post it was far too easy to find examples of multiple victims and multiple offending institutions; this is not just a story of a few people affected in a couple of rogue institutions (as is made clear by various quotes I’ll share from those stories too).
By MSH*
In this post I present a range of news stories from recent years, which illustrate the following concerning trends:
The intellectually disabled in facilities, are too-often treated like animals or prisoners;
Their and their families’ complaints are often ignored, or dismissed without adequate investigation, until (and sometimes even after) it is too late;
Carers are frequently untrained or significantly under-trained;
Carers and offenders frequently deny or down-play the incidents, even in the face of evidence from multiple sources over multiple incidents;
The abuses are ultimately “State-funded,” with lack of responsibility or accountability on behalf of the State Ministries in charge of that funding.
What do we do about this? We start by raising awareness, because these things are going on behind closed doors, to people who are often non-verbal or very verbally challenged. We demand that offending carers, institutions and Ministries are held criminally accountable. We recognise that this ill-treatment and the responses to the ill-treatment, reflect wider societal attitudes that abuse of the disabled is somehow understandable or acceptable, that the disabled are in someway “lesser” human beings that deserve or can expect maltreatment, even under professional care.
Writing this post, and collecting these stories, is my small effort towards raising awareness about these patterns of abuse and dangerous attitudes.
Here are just seven stories from across New Zealand, and my summaries of key points and important quotes. Most of the stories concern people with autism, as that is the disability I have been most likely to read about over the years and is present in the stories I most easily recall. Many of the patients have other co-occuring intellectual disabilities. (Keep in mind the number of other intellectually disabled individuals whose stories I haven’t encountered yet, to give you a feel for why this will just be the tip of the iceberg of abuse in our facilities and by our State-funded carers):
“Boy left to eat grass at horror home.” (May 5th, 2013, Taranaki Daily News.) Victims: multiple victims of many incidents of both abuse and neglect. Facility: Parklands, in Pukekawa. “Ministry audit reports, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Star-Times, say the facility harked back to institutions of the 1950s.” Long history of documented abuses. People who ran the service deny the truth of the complaints. Staff were untrained, and in charge of 19 people. Families had suspicions, but were always reassured by the staff that the complaints and concerns were false. “Despite the allegations of abuse, some of which were substantiated by ministry staff, the couple are not facing criminal charges.” Critique within the story: “You couldn’t do it to an animal but it’s OK to do it to the intellectually disabled.”Includes a call for the Ministry to be held responsible too.
“Mum: Why did my son die?” (Nov 18th, 2012, NZ Herald). Victim: Otto, 21 year old autistic man died in a house fire under the care of a carer. Facility: A house in Glendene, Auckland (not his home). “On the night of Otto’s death, police told his mother his body had been found in a locked room inside the locked house. She said she was also informed the house caught fire while the caregiver was out buying food.”
“Carer of disabled teen denies assault.” (Oct 30th, 2012, Nelson Mail.) Victim: Sixteen year old boy with various intellectual disabilities, including Down syndrome and autism. Facility: Purpose-built Exeter St property, Nelson. The boy lived under the care of highly trained carers. His family raised their concerns, the individual accused of the actions denies the claims, despite multiple witness accounts supporting the occurrence of abuses. Official records of the incidents had “disappeared” from the files. Claims against them include inappropriate restraint techniques and violence: “That a Nelson woman repeatedly assaulted a severely intellectually disabled teenaged boy, including punching and kicking him, dragging him by his hair, and holding him against a wall by his throat.”
“Autistic patient locked in room.” (Apr 28th, 2012, Stuff.co.nz.) Victim: Ashley Peacock. Facility: Tawhirimatea, Porirua. Thirty-three year old man with autism and various other mental health concerns and intellectual disabilities, who thinks he is in prison and can’t understand why. Suffering long-term seclusion, and very poor living conditions: “It is devoid of any furnishings. There was a mattress on the floor, no toilet, no access to fresh air, minimal sunlight.”
“Home criticised after autistic resident harmed.” (Feb 13th, 2012, The Press) Victim: Female, with autism, epilepsy, and intellectual disability. Facility: Mary Moodie Family Trust facility, Christchurch. Dragged across floor by legs and arms, causing her physical harm. Other victims also identified, 14 residents at the facility in total. Under-trained workers. Family was not notified of the key incident.
“My brother deserves better.” (Jun 21st, 2008, NZ Herald.) Victim: Twenty-four year old Jonathan, an autistic man, in care since he was 14. Facility: House run by Timata Hou organisation, Auckland. “What’s disturbing is how to reconcile that this service is sanctioned by both the Ministry of Health and the Family Court. If this is the standard of autism care in New Zealand, then it appears we haven’t advanced much from the days of locking people in the asylum.” And: ” Dr Hickey is extremely critical of the state of autism care in New Zealand, saying it’s 20 years behind the US and Britain and about 10 years behind Australia.” Jonathan is regularly restrained, both by physical means and by heavy use of medication (leaving him “catatonic” at times). “Jonathan has fewer rights than someone in prison.” The Ministry of Health funds this substandard care, but refuses to fund the family to supply the care with support themselves, a policy which is ironically intended to protect individuals from poor-quality service. “At present there is only a facade behind which are services that range from inappropriate through to appalling…”
To each of these families and individuals, I want to extend my condolences for what you’ve been through, and my respect for your willingness to fight the system as it stands, and to make your stories heard.
